I Remember You
by Lone Gunwoman of the Week
Summary: After coming back from the dead, Mulder has a word with Langly -- or is it Mulder? A tribute to Joey Ramone.


Title: "I Remember You"  
Author: Rebecca Perlow  
Rating: G  
Category: LGM for Lone Gunmen, M for Mulder, V for vignette  
Spoilers: Season Eight  
Summary: After coming back from the dead, Mulder has a word with Langly -- or is it Mulder?  
  
Disclaimer: Mulder and the Lone Gunmen are the   
property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions,  
and the Fox network. "Leave Home," "Rocket  
to Russia," "Rock N' Roll High School" are the  
property of the Ramones and Sire Records.  
Mountain Dew belongs to Mountain Dew.  
Rebecca Perlow belongs to Rebecca Perlow  
and everybody's happy.  
  
My thanks go out to Erika, my beta reader and  
friend who, like me, has a lot of stuff going on   
right now, and to my Dad, who doesn't watch  
the show but read this story anyway.  
  
*******************************************************  
"I remember you  
Oo-oo-oo  
I remember you  
Oo-oo-oo.."  
  
Langly toyed with the volume knob on his diskman as he balanced it between jean  
-clad knees, the hyperactive beat of the "Leave Home" album bouncing around inside   
the headphones clamped firmly to his ears. Silently, he cracked his knuckles and   
prepared to tackle pages 3, 4, and 5 of the first May issue of The Lone Gunman. Behind   
him, something was happening that, six months ago, not even the most paranoid   
conspiracy theorist could have imagined.  
  
Death was such a weird thing. So final and yet..not. Mulder's had been the first   
of two deaths he had had to deal with in the last six months. When Scully had   
called them with the news, he had sat down on the sofa and not moved for several   
hours. After so many close shaves in so many years, the very idea seemed downright   
impossible. People like Fox Mulder didn't die. Obviously.  
  
The second - another impossible passing - had hit him just as hard, going so far as   
to send him into a 37 hour seclusion in the knee hole of his desk, amid the aging   
dustbunnies and briar patch of extension cords while Byers and Frohike tried to coax   
him out with promises of pizza and the latest copy of Celebrity Skin. Just him and his   
laptop as he furiously typed out condolences to several online friends and contemporaries   
who had also been devastated by the loss. His diskman became his best friend. "Leave   
Home,""Rocket to Russia,""Rock N' Roll High School," each album got their fair share of   
his attention in that first week. He and a couple of the guys in his D & D group had even   
purchased plane tickets for New York in the hope of attending the funeral - or at least   
witnessing it via high-powered binoculars. Fortunately or unfortunately, a set of unexpected   
circumstances cut Langly's role in the pilgrimmage short.   
  
A few days before, Mulder had walked into their office, as healthy and as alive as anyone   
walking the street. Maybe more so. No theory - conspiracy or scientific - could explain it.   
Many would try.   
  
It was a privilege not many people had been awarded - the abilitiy to come back from the   
dead - save for a few religious icons and monstrous stars of late afternoon creature features.   
And, on this day, he sat on the couch at the far end of the TLG office, going over the finer   
points of a recently closed case with his other two comrades, as well as answering any   
questions concerning the six months he'd spent in the ground of a South Carolina cemetery.  
  
It seemed, to Langly, unfair that such a chance be bestowed to only one person every 2000 years.   
Surely there were others who deserved a similar turn of events. He could think of at least one..   
Unfazed by the ghoulish nature of the conversation, yet unwilling to participate in it nonetheless,   
he chose instead to concentrate on editing the upcoming issue, turning up the volume on his   
favorite track.   
  
Eyes glued to the monitor, ears tuned into the beloved CD, he was unsure of precisely when   
the even drawl of Mulder's monotone had disappeared behind him. But the computer clock   
had read 5:19 when he'd felt a strangely familiar shadow behind him.  
  
"Hey, Ringo."  
  
It was Mulder's voice, Mulder's hand on his shoulder Langly had thought as he turned   
around in his chair. But the figure that had suddenly appeared in front of him stood at least   
four or five inches taller than the seasoned FBI agent, clad in attire the Bureau would have   
immediately declared unsuitable. The two items of clothing he would remember in detail later   
were ripped jeans and a leather jacket. The solid angles of his friend's features were half-covered   
by a thick curtain of long, dark hair. The color seemed to have drained from his face leaving a   
chalky subway tan in its wake, and the eye he could see was distorted by a thin ovacular lense.  
  
Langly blinked hard as an overwhelming darkness seized the room and, the next thing he knew, he   
was being hauled back up into the chair by three familiar pairs of arms. The clock on the computer   
read 5:29.  
  
As Mulder had approached him in search of a back issue, Byers explained, he had slumped to   
the floor, taking the unfortunate diskman with him. It's double A batteries skittering off into an   
indiscernible portion of the room. The three men had spent the better part of the last ten minutes   
attempting to revive him, succeeding only when Mulder retrieved one of Frohike's sweat socks   
from the hamper and held it under the younger man's nose.   
  
Both events left their blonde compadre substantially shaken.  
  
Over leftover cheese steaks and flat Mountain Dew a few days later, Langly recounted for his   
friends what he had experienced in that split second before he'd "bailed." Their response was   
skeptical. But not enough to persuade their storyteller, who remained convinced of its authenticity.   
  
Though Byers and Frohike would claim over and over again to have heard nothing of the sort,   
Langly would swear until the day he died he had been able to make out three simple words from   
a mouth that - in that one second - didn't look like Mulder's:  
  
"Gabba gabba hey."  
  
*******************************************************  
  
This story is loosely inspired by the "We'll miss you, Joey" image on the official LGM website,   
as well as my own personal obsession with the Ramones' music. Like Langly and many others,   
I love Joey and miss him terribly.  
  
Numbers:  
5:19 - May 19 is Joey's birthday.  
5:29 - May 29 is my birthday.  
  
Rebecca's X-Files Fanfiction Page  
http://www.gurlpages.com/tv/frohikeisadoll/  
  
lemonbaby67@yahoo.com 


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